Margery Booth

Who is Margery Booth?

Margery Booth, was an English opera singer, who having married a German and emigrated to Germany, became a British spy during World War II, who met Adolf Hitler and sang at a British prisoner of war camp.

Booth was born in Hodges Street, Wigan, Lancashire, the daughter of Levi and Ada Booth. The family later moved to Southport. Booth trained in Bolton with R. Evans, in Knightsbridge with Eileen D'Orme, and then the Guildhall School of Music, where she won the Merscer'Scholarship in 1925, then the Opera Scholorship and Liza Lehmann Prize.

She made her professional debut at the Queen's Hall, Wigan, on 4 October 1935. She then moved back to London to continue her career in Covent Garden London in 1936, but marriage to Dr. Egon Strohm, from a brewing family in the Schwarzwald, took her to Germany. Booth's career blossomed with performances at Bayreuth and with the Berlin State Opera, but she also made irregular appearances at Covent Garden. She starred as Madalene in 1936, as Flosshilde in Götterdämmerung, as the Shepherd boy in recording of Tosca with Hildegard Ranczak, but was most famous for her portrayal as Carmen.